Lack Of Data Still A Challenge In APAC

Programmatic has been gaining steam in the Asia-Pacific region, but the industry still lacks awareness and understanding, according to a new study from Singapore-based MediaQuark.

Of the 108 respondents to the company's survey, 62% said that a lack of industry understanding was one of the biggest challenges for programmatic in the APAC market.

Looking at many international markets, a lack of knowledge is often the main factor that hinders growth of programmatic. Countries like India are starting to gain more of an interest in programmatic, but ad tech firms often have the challenge of educating advertisers about the space. In the Asia-Pacific region, finding quality data is also a concern for advertisers.

In MediaQuark's latest "Programmatic and Data" survey, after the lack of industry understanding, 54% of respondents said a lack of third-party data was one of the main challenges and 39% cited the high cost of data services. While 47.2% of the survey respondents were brands and agencies, 48.1% worked at ad tech companies, including trading desks, SSPs, DSPs, DMPs, publishers and ad networks and exchanges.

In China, the lack of data is well known, as many of the large portals and publishers are reluctant to share their data, leading to fewer third-party DMPs and a lack of transparency when it comes to data.

But this challenge might soon be overcome, as brands and advertisers are looking to increase their data-driven approaches. In the MediaQuark survey, 60% of brands and marketers want to add data expertise to their business in 2015, through in-house staff or external DMPs, and 54% of DSPs are looking into ways to get more third-party data in 2015.

MediaQuark itself is keen on in this increased interest in data in the Asia-Pacific region. In March, the company merged with audience development company Seed and now provides data services and audience targeting.

A full 65% of advertisers in the region said they are already delivering programmatic campaigns, and 54% of DSPs are looking into ways to get more third-party data in 2015.

"Over the past few years there have been an influx of ad tech players into the region, setting up their infrastructure and preparing for the market to mature," said Tom Simpson, CEO of MediaQuark, in a release about the study. "2015 is the year that programmatic marketing will finally attract serious budgets from brands and investments start to pay off."

According to this report programmatic budgets account for less than 25% of all digital advertising budgets, for advertisers in APAC.